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Thank you for playing the game, and for the feedback! Being that this was a jam game and made frantically under time constraints, the difficulty curve is definitely a bit more punishing that we would have liked. However, we did playtest to make sure each fight is possible to win.

Triggering the Enrage effect while low-health is a great strategy for beating Muros, especially if you’ve built up a good deal of strength beforehand. However, the unpredictability of the hero character is always liable to throw a wrench into your plans if he plays the wrong card at the wrong time. Part of the strategy of the game is based around using your limited influence to limit the cards available for the hero to pick, so that he has no choice but to pick the “right one”. For example – did you know it’s possible to ensure that the hero always plays Opening Gambit on the first turn? The buffs conferred by this card are pretty huge, so making sure to start each fight this way is a consistently solid way to set yourself up for success.

One big mistake we made during the jam was not explaining the “mana” system in any way whatsoever during the tutorial, as understanding the mana economy is a big part of strategizing. Players of card games like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering are likely already familiar with systems like these, so we simply took it for granted that players would already know how it works. To briefly explain: each card has a “mana cost” that the character has to spend to play it. Each character starts each of their turns with an amount of mana equal to the count of the current combat round. This is to say, on the first round, the Hero will have 1 mana to spend on playing cards, on the second round, 2, and so on. If a character only has 1 mana, they can’t play 2-cost cards, for example, so if they only have 2-cost cards in their hand, they simply have to end their turn and wait until the next one to keep playing cards.

The last missing piece that might help you with their strategy is to explain CPU card-picking behavior – it’s basically completely random. On their turn, characters simply pick cards that they have enough mana to play in a random order, until they no longer have enough mana to play any cards in their hand. At that point they end their turn. As you’ve no doubt already encountered, this will oftentimes result in your Hero making suboptimal plays – for example, buffing himself after attacking rather than the other way around. Fortunately, this liability also applies to your enemies, so really the game is about setting up the deck so that your hero only has good options to pick from, and so that the enemy only has bad options to pick from.

Hopefully this helps a bit! We had a ton of fun making this game so we hope that you had fun playing it.

Really appreciate the detailed feedback! It’s really great to hear that you noticed/appreciated a lot of the little details in the game that are somewhat subtle – e.g., the music slowing down when you’re “channeling luck” (which is a great way to describe that mechanic, by the way). We really pushed ourselves over the 48 hours, chugging a lot of coffee and warding away sleep, to try to pack in as many little improvements as possible. So hearing that a player really vibed with the game makes it all worthwhile!

No promises, but we’re considering expanding the game – that might mean finishing the third boss and throwing in some Quality of Life improvements, or it could mean trying to develop it into a proper-length title – and a lot of the things we have in mind for the expansion were in your list of suggestions! UX stuff like turn counters and status effect counters, improved AI for the card game “players” including different personalities and playstyles, more battles and content (potentially organized in a roguelike-type way like the Slay the Spire dungeon map), improved art and music, and more robust and expressive deckbuilding for the player are all things we absolutely thought about and wanted to do for the jam, but sadly had to cut just because of the time restraints of the 48-hour jam. But they’re all things we’d love to get to if we decide to keep working on it.

That said, one big question is – is this the sort of concept that would actually stay fun long enough to warrant a more fleshed-out title, or is it more a novelty? It’s hard to tell without playtesting, but that is the weird thing about jams – an idea that’s great for an experimental jam game may not necessarily pan out for a game that’s presumably designed to be played for many more hours.

The last thing I’ll say is that the asymmetrical PvP idea sounds really clever! It wouldn’t necessarily be too hard to implement either… Hm…

In any case, thanks for playing and glad you enjoyed the game!

Glad you enjoyed the game! If we expand it any further, we would probably try to add more battles that would gradually ramp up the difficulty a little more gracefully.

Glad you enjoyed the game! Can’t promise a full game yet, but we are considering putting some more work into it!

Thanks so much, and congrats on making it into Mark’s top 20! Planning to try out your game soon.

Dota 2 is one of my all-time favorite heroes, so when I saw this game was about being a MOBA shopkeeper I knew I had to try. Honestly big props for creating an entire combat-simulator just to act as the backdrop for a game about being a shopkeeper! I feel like most other devs would have settled for a RNG simulator that would just create “random events”, but you really went the extra mile to create an abstracted-out MOBA match that creates a much-more genuine demand for the items you’re selling, as well as determining things like when someone is even able to shop your wares – it happens when they respawn! Love the idea that the shopkeeper may have some slight allegiances but is more or less just trying to make a profit. Your goal (to make >1k gold) actually fits with the theme as well – makes me think, the shopkeeper in games like Dota would be quite disappointed with a short match that ends quickly, really they would want a long, drawn-out bloodbath where both sides are buying really expensive items. It’s fun to channel that desire as the player here, where ultimately you would prefer the heroes to win, but you need to sell the villains at least enough for them to be able to hold out awhile so you can get your 1k gold. Overall really fun idea that is executed with a surprising level of depth, good job!

Fun platformer! I appreciate that the character’s movement is relatively simple because the game gets a ton of mileage out of the special “reversal” mechanic – anything like double jumps or wall-jumping would just distract from the main idea. The result is that the focus stays on the cinnamon roll concept, and the player gets to discover all sorts of fun little interactions – like, for example, how you can get on top of a cinnamon roll by jumping onto its side while also using the rotation of the roll to supplement your movement. In World 2 I really enjoyed how you pushed the idea to its absolute limit – now structures are attached to the cinnamon rolls and the player has control over these massive structures. Honestly having control over the level at such a macro-scale that gave a really fun sense of scope I’ve rarely seen before even in big-budget platformers, so I think you should be proud of that.

The one thing I’d love to see with this concept is to refine the physics just a bit. I feel like it would be a ton of fun if the cinnamon rolls and their attached structures could transfer their movement to the player to “slingshot” them around. In the current version, the player doesn’t really retain momentum at all after their feet leave the cinnamon roll.

Well done!

Thanks for the kind comment!

Thanks so much! Yea, the card costs is something we dropped the ball on explaining in the tutorial – it’s a mechanic pretty familiar to players of games like Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering but not necessarily intuitive if you haven’t played games like that. Glad to hear that the other aspects of the game kept you engaged long enough to figure it out!

Muros ain’t playin’.

Ah, that definitely makes sense. That’s a good strategy and one that I’m sure would have saved a lot of devs (myself included) from some last-minute panic.

Cheers!

Making a reverse PT is a really clever and ambitious idea! The idea of managing the panic level of your “player” so that they move quickly, but not scaring them to death, is a clever resource to manage.

When I first learned the topic for the game jam one of the first things I thought about was reversing a bunch of classic arcade games. Snake was definitely not one of them, but I’m glad someone thought of it because this is a great little concept that goes beyond just being a mere novelty thanks to some really clever design. I love how the snake is a constant source of danger, but also your only tool for getting rid of the bugs which also pose a big threat to your life. Really solid submission that definitely deserves some love. Also, well done getting this done in only 11 hours, if I’m understanding the submission time right? That’s some seriously impressive dev speed!

Thanks for playing!

Glad to hear you enjoyed the game! And yes, very fair on both points. Card costs was something we forgot to explain specifically in the tutorial which has definitely tripped up some players. And some kind of confirmation dialog for the ESC key would be sorely needed – sorry to hear you lost your progress!

Thanks very much!

A well-made little shmup that gets a lots of mileage out of a charming artstyle and some nice juicy visual effects. Love the screen shake, music, and animation for the bullet hero. Also, any game that lets you play as a bullet which has its own gun which shoots even more bullets is a winner in my book.

One nice thing would have some kind of indicator of score or progress. After playing a while, I wasn’t sure if it was an infinite arcade-style type game where eventual failure is inevitable, or whether if I lasted long enough I would actually hit the guy I was shot towards.

Well done!

One of the more creative concepts I’ve seen in the jam so far! I really like the idea of playing as a quest-giver, especially one without allegiances who might have no reservations about turning their clients on one another. Setting a bounty on your own clients makes me think – it would be fun to have a mechanic where you could potentially conspire with your clients to do unsavory quests that are very profitable for the both of you, but could ruin your reputation if words gets out. That adds another incentive to sell out your client as a bounty – you’d be destroying the evidence of your misdeed.

The presentation was also really charming, the character art was fun and expressive.

Thanks so much!

Nicely executed “tower offense” concept, the concept of having 3 different lanes is a great way to add a bit more depth as opposed to something like a traditional Bloons layout where there’s only a single lane. Seems like there is a lot of fun potential for strategies like using weaker units as cannon fodder to clear a safe path for more expensive units that can deal more damage to structures. However, I agree with others in the comments that some tooltips/descriptions for the different types of units would be a very welcome addition. That would make it a lot easier to players to strategize and plan their attack. I also enjoyed the presentation, it’s a lot of fun to hear the battlefield become a more and more chaotic soundscape as the constantly-spawning towers start to mow down your units.

Fun reversal of the “frogger” concept that requires a nice balance of strategy, timing, and mechanical execution to get right. It’s a lot of fun to juggle between all the different frogs that need to be safely escorted, making sure log-borne frogs will be able to jump to the next log safely while also setting up previous streams for latecomers. The presentation was also really charming and well-done – I particularly enjoyed the concept of having frogs hop on the 4th beat, which is both a great way to communicate the timing of the jumps as well as a way to add a rhythmic beat to the game that almost makes it feel a bit musical.

Running around trying to keep everyone topped off on ammo is quite an exciting and stressful time management puzzle, especially when zombies start to stack up around the perimeter. I think the game could benefit a lot from some simple quality-of-life improvements like explanations about what the different items do, a bit of polish to the movement, etc. Also, for a game which is all about running around and making deliveries, it would be fun if there was some cool risk-reward mechanics – like suppose you could carry multiple items at once, but it slows down your character because they’re carrying so much weight. This could add another layer of decision making to the game.

Good job!

Fun concept, I like the idea of balancing your desire for gold with the short-term need to stay alive by hoarding up equipment. What really impressed me was a lot of the subtle polish, the flavor text of the adventurer’s journey through the dungeon, the musical cues when defeating an enemy, the 3D effect of the dungeon doors closing and opening when beginning and ending a run – just a lot of little details that go a long way.

When I saw that the Costco hot dog price had increased, I knew that all hope was lost for society.

All joking aside, this was a really thoughtful take on a lot of issues that I actually spend a lot of time thinking about. I suppose it shouldn’t be too surprising that people who work on the same game jam would spend time thinking about the same issues, but the intersection of generative AI, our modern corporate culture, and games as a medium is a really fascinating area. Will generative AI be a tool to help creators create better games, or will it remove something special from the process and cheapen the medium as a whole? Will AI create a world where humans have to do less tedious labor, or will it just help further reinforce systems that force people to do menial tasks in the first place, even when it’s not clear whether this kind of work is actually doing any good for anyone? There don’t seem to be many clear answers but I think it’s commendable that you were able to create a narrative that tackles so many of these questions.

Haha, thanks so much! We really wanted to add Reletrix and even had a special mechanic in mind for his boss fight. However, in the end, we decided to use the last hours of the jam for polish, bug fixes, and making usability improvements (e.g. card tooltips)… Otherwise we were afraid people would never care to make it past the scarecrow fight let alone wish to see the endgame.

I can’t make any promises yet but we will definitely remember your comment as we decide whether to add more content!

Card games are definitely tricky to balance well, so our goal was to make sure that, at the very least, each boss fight was winnable. Thanks so much for the play and the kind comment!

Exactly, we hoped it would be cathartic to finally be able to pull off the “perfect combos” that rarely actually happen in games like MtG. And you hit the nail on the head – the hero’s cards are actually mediocre for the most part when compared against boss cards like Deadly Swipes, so he really needs the player’s help.

And I can totally understand how the writing might be a bit “annoying”. My hope was to invoke some of the austere self-seriousness of old English as a way to suggest the grandness and importance of the gods – but that was risky move as I think it also can come off as a bit pretentious.

Nonetheless, we really appreciate the kind words! We had a blast making the game so we’re glad to hear others are enjoying it.

Thanks so much!

We really appreciate the kind words!

Limited-use “god powers” could be a really fun idea… Maybe once per match, the hero gets one “critical hit” which doubles his damage. Lots of fun possibilities there.

We really wanted to give the player some sort of option as to which card to pick as a reward for each boss fight. Giving the player some kind of option in terms of how they improve their deck is a huge part of what makes card battling games so fun – most of them are also “deck builders” in some way. However, from a design perspective, we weren’t sure whether the player should be able to pick the card directly, or whether that would be giving Fortuna too much direct control over the hero’s actions. Maybe Fortuna could give the player a “random” selection of 3 cards, but the hero ultimately picks which one to put in his deck? Eventually, we ran out of time and didn’t really get to implement either of these ideas, but we’d love to explore that area further.

Thanks much!

Thanks so much, you really “get” the metaphor of the game! Part of the challenge is that you can stack the deck how you please, but you can’t necessarily always force the hero to make the best move, even if you’ve given him access to it. Though, there are some tricks you can use to reduce how “randomly” the hero behaves… For example:

Really polished presentation!

Thanks so much -- we did work really hard on this one!

This game really makes you feel like you're Mark Brown. Love that it actually downloads real games from the jam as elements for the puzzle!

Haha, totally understandable! But hey, now you have a solid infrastructure that you could build on if you ever decided to pursue the idea further.

Thanks so much for playing! I agree that VIII-B did a great job on the art. And yes, the dialogue is definitely a bit much, but I wanted to challenge myself to write in a "mythic" style!

Solid interpretation of how one might "reverse" an Asteroids-type game! I appreciated the little nuances to the physics, like how telekinesis shoots smaller rocks at a much greater speed.

The concept of a friendly monster who just wants to help people out of a location without scaring anyone is pretty great! The stealth elements were pretty effective too. I liked the idea of rattling trashcans to intentionally scare people into a safer direction.

Even though it's only a prototype, I think the concept itself is one of the cleverer ones I've seen in the jam! I love the idea of "outsourcing" a seemingly automated task like scorekeeping to some poor person who has to frantically try to keep up with what's happening. Would love to see the idea refined a bit further.

Intriguing concept and impressive that you were able to set up something like this (that presumably uses a database) in such a short time limit! Would have loved to have seen this extend a bit further into some actual gameplay though. Maybe a game where you make a unique character build (allocating stats, picking gear, etc.) but then someone else has to actually take that character for a run in the dungeon. When they die, the character is gone forever, but if they win, that character is immortalized in some kind of leaderboard and both the "creator" and the run "player" are attributed!